McCartney's 90's classic Flaming Pie

To be very honest, during the nineties I lost my interest in Paul McCartney a little. After a series of, in my opinion, some lesser albums, I thought I’ll pack it in. So when in 1997 Flaming Pie saw the daylight, I was not in front of the line to buy the record. But that's something special about McCartney, he always knows to surprise you again.

No less than four years was the gap between Flaming Pie and its predecessor Off The Ground; Never before had there been such a long break between two albums. It was not a voluntary choice but an urgent request from the record company not to compete with another major and prestigious project involving McCartney:

I was basically not under any pressure to make this album. Because of the release of The Beatles Anthology the record company said to me they didn’t need an album for a couple of years. So I started to just make tracks for my own pleasure, get my friends involved, go to his studio, go to mine, just taking it real easy. 

Paul McCartney

One of the invited friends was Steve Miller, with whom McCartney collaborated briefly in the late 1960's. Miller is heard on three songs: If You Wanna, the single Young Boy and Used To Be Bad. The latter is a joint composition, derived from a jam session and the song sounds exactly the way it is: Two old friends who are having fun making music in the studio. The same atmosphere is heard on the track recorded with another old friend, Ringo Starr. Really Love You is a drums and bass-dominated song, credited to both ex-Beatles, and only subtly supplemented with piano and some guitar licks.




It's not the only contribution by Ringo to the album. He also plays on Beautiful Night, a song that was recorded already in 1987 but was not considered good enough by McCartney at the time. In particular Ringo's vocals at the end distinguishes this new version from the first one.

I wasn’t too happy with it, there was something about the recording that just didn’t grab me. So it was great to do the definitive version with Ringo. It was very appropriate that I finally nailed it with him. It was really good to see that we locked in, the old Beatles rhythm section, drums and bass. 

Paul McCartney

Video: Beautiful Night

What strikes is that Flaming Pie has been strongly influenced by The Beatles Anthology project. Not only because of the choice for the producer: ELO foreman Jeff Lynne, who McCartney had met during the recording of the last two Beatles singles Free As A Bird and Real Love, but also the album’s overall sound is influenced by it.

Coming off the Anthology, hearing the Beatles stuff being very direct, not so much my stuff, all the Beatles stuff. Very simple and direct. I wanted in a way to get back to that, just for a laugh, to see if it worked. And it seems like it did.

Paul McCartney

Straightforward, that's the core of Flaming Pie. And this is achieved by keeping the recordings small and simple in general; In most of the songs, only one or two others play along with McCartney: Steve Miller, Ringo Starr and / or Jeff Lynne. The production is therefore quite basic, without too much overdubs:

The other thing that occurred to me while making this album is that the atmosphere in the studio kind of communicates itself to the listener. I didn’t really think that was true, but I believe it now, after this album. I’ve sometimes just been doing a vocal for like for ever and ever just to get every little note right. But I’ve been so uptight doing that, and when you’ve finished the thing, you think ‘oh that’s good, that’s technically good’, but it doesn’t grab me. It’s not having a good time, or something.

Paul McCartney

Video: Flaming Pie (live)

The influence of The Beatles Anthology and the collaboration with Steve Miller and Ringo Starr make Flaming Pie having an atmosphere of nostalgia. You'll also hear it in the title song Flaming Pie, which refers to Lennon's humorous statement to the origin of The Beatles' name: a vision in which a man appeared on a flaming pie with the announcement 'From this day on you are Beatles with an' A'. The nostalgic character of the album is further enhanced by the opening song Songs We Were Singing:

I was remembering the Sixties; sitting around late at night, dossing, smoking pipes, drinking wine…jawing, talking about the cosmic solution. It was what we were all doing… all that, ‘What about…wow!’ It’s that time in your life when you got a chance for all that.

Paul McCartney

All in all, it’s one of McCartney's top albums, full of gems like Calico Skies, Souvenir and Great Day. Really beautiful is the love song Somedays, written for Linda, and getting an extra charge as a year later Linda McCartney will pass away after suffering from breast cancer. Flaming Pie is McCartney's last album on which she participates. At least as touching is Little Willow written for the relatives of Ringo Starr's late ex-wife Maureen, the mother of Who-drummer Zack Starr.



Another personal favorite is the mellow Heaven On A Sunday, with which McCartney once again proves that he can catch, like no other, a particular mood in a song. In this case that of a lome, summer Sunday afternoon. In addition, it contains a first: the debut of son James on a record.

I asked my son if he would fancy playing a bit. I had this idea that if I’d playing a bit of acoustic guitar, it would be good to hear someone like him answer me. It’s a tricky thing to do that, to trade licks. So we went to the studio and I played a little lick and he got an electric sound and answered it. It was nice, with the acoustic and electric, you could hear the difference. It was great, it was all over in an hour or two. 

Paul McCartney

Video: Heaven On A Sunday

As often with McCartney releases, the album was acclaimed as the best ever since Tug of War or even Band on the Run. In this case, the recommendation was more than justified. At the time those two classics still stood higher, but now I have a preference for Flaming Pie over Tug of War. The album has simply passed the ravages of time better. In addition, the record has turned out to be a turning point. Where in the 1970’s and 1980’s highs and lows intersected, the period after Flaming Pie is characterized by a series of albums of a constant very high level. This record made McCartney more than worth watching closely again. The 1989 album Flowers In The Dirt may have been intended as a comeback, Flaming Pie was the real one. 

Related posts:


Macca's gems: Calico Skies
Macca's gems: Souvenir
Flaming Pie Quiz


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André Homan

André Homan is a Dutch writer and journalist.

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